


friendly advice

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson is an oblivious fool, Daisy And Her Huge Crush On Coulson, Director Daisy Johnson, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Happy Go Cousy, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Silly, Tropes, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, fake date, not season 5 compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-05-27 09:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15021647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Daisy has a problem and in her opinion only Coulson can help.Written for the Happy-Go-Cousy challenge at johnsoncoulson.com





	1. a friendly proposal

_For once the forces of chaos and disaster that seem to govern her everyday life and never leave her a moment to herself have conspired to clear Daisy’s agenda just when she most needed them to keep coming at her with their busy life-and-death routine. It’s not that she doesn’t appreciate the lull between missions, or the fact that the multiple many-named many-headed terrorist groups threatening innocent Inhumans seem to have agreed to lie low at the same time this week, or that the other dozens of emergencies SHIELD normally takes care of - those tiny red lights that pop up in the maps on the screens of her office, which could mean anything from unauthorized use of alien tech to some Hydra reject who hasn’t notice the war is over for them - are falling on the less-urgent side of an emergency these days. She appreciates that. Daisy would love nothing else but for her job to become obsolete, or her necessity to be both protector and public face of her people to stop being… well, a necessity. But a quiet weeks means she has to deal with the problem at hand._

_“Problem” might be stretching the definition._

_She runs the scenario a hundred times in her head, and there’s only one person who can help with this. Only one person she’d WANT to help with this.The only person she can be absolutely sure won’t laugh at her or think her pathetic, One person she’d be comfortable talking about this stuff with. The very person she should be uncomfortable with, on the other hand._

_Daisy tries to talk herself out of it the whole morning, while at the same time looking for a moment - another lull in an already lull-some day - when they are alone and she can bring it up._

_This is a mistake, she tells herself._

_Then she takes a long breath and says the words._

 

+++

 

“I need your dating advice,” Daisy says.

Coulson turns around, sure he’s heard wrong or that she isn’t talking to him.

But they are alone on the bridge of the Zephyr.

They are overseeing a very slow, very low stakes mission for the new recruits, and Coulson had thought Daisy was just bored, because she’s been distracted all morning,

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, I should start from the beginning…”

Daisy beckons him to a different part of the bridge, as if somewhere more private, which makes no sense, because there is no one around anyway.

“So I let Sam Koenig handle all the Quake PR for me,” she starts.

“Big mistake.”

Daisy makes a grimace. “Yes, Coulson, _I know_. I just don’t like that stuff - people treating me as if I were a real superhero. And I don’t have the time anyway.”

By this point Coulson knows it’s an uphill battle, trying to convince Daisy otherwise when she makes those remarks - he saves the battle for heavier stuff than a throwaway line when she is trying to explain herself.

He gives her a _go on_ nod.

“There was this charity thing where you could bid for superhero stuff - oh you would have liked it, there was Captain America memorabilia,” she says.

Coulson feels a bit embarrassed. “I don’t do that anymore,” he protests. “And anyway I wouldn’t have the money.”

Cap is still his hero, of course, but he doesn’t feel the same adoration as before - it makes sense, he’s not his only hero, after all. 

“Right, money, you see,” Daisy continues. “It was for a good cause.”

“Orphans,” Coulson offers. He knows her.

“Orphans,” she nods, very defensively. “And I didn’t really look too much at the thing, I trusted Sam wouldn’t… I really didn’t know what the whole thing entailed.”

“Daisy. What did you do?”

He watches her bite her bottom lip, mortified. Daisy is easily embarrassed, always on edge to avoid making a mistake, but her expression now… some serious must have happened. He’s getting worried.

“I might have accidentally put A Date With Quake up for auction,” she explains, closing her eyes for a moment so that she won’t have to see Coulson’s reaction.

It takes him a moment to catch up with what the hell A Date With Quake means. He doesn’t mean to smile, he swears, it’s meant to be sympathetic; he’d hate to be in Daisy’s place right now. He just thought it was something… well, more worrisome.

“I gather someone paid the minimum bid,” he says, trying to cover up his amusement. Daisy’s eyebrows help to fell his expression.

“Yeah, and then some,” Daisy says. Her cheeks go red almost immediately. “I wasn’t bragging, I-”

“It’s okay,” he tells her. Of course someone would pay a lot of money for a date with her (he doesn’t tell Daisy this). Except the whole idea, even for charity, leaves a bad taste in his mouth. What was Koenig thinking? Even as Quake it’s not something that gives a great message. And Daisy is a shy person, she shouldn’t have to be put in that position. Slowly Coulson starts to share her annoyance.

“The thing is now I have to go on a date with a stranger,” Daisy finishes.

“I got that,” Coulson says. “Why do you need advice?”

“So. Okay. This is going to sound pathetic coming from a 32-year-old but I kinda maybe have never gone on a date before?”

“That can’t be true,” Coulson says.

“It is. I’m a freak, I know. I’ve had boyfriends, no problem in that category, if you know what I mean,” she makes a snort sound that is supposed to… what? sound sexy? “But I always hooked up straight away, and they were not the kind of guys to take you on dates, really. And then with Lincoln… there was never time or space for that.”

Coulson feels his heart fall a little.

“I’m sorry, Daisy,” he says. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad stuff.”

She shakes her head. “No, no, it’s fine. I’m fine. I know it’s unfair but… I’m fine about that whole thing.”

It’s not unfair. She deserves more than mourning forever just because she thinks that death is on her conscience. Coulson remembers his own last conversation with Lincoln - he was going to walk away from Daisy when she needed him the most. He didn’t have time and Coulson doesn’t know if Daisy ever found out about it, but he hopes she didn’t.

“Why _me_?” he asks, trying to get back to the favor Daisy was asking.

She seems to falter.

“Well. You’re an expert.”

He blinks.

“On dating?”

“Yeah. I mean, at least the logistics of it,” she explains. “You have gone on fancy dinners to nice restaurants. You’ve ordered champagne. Hell, you’ve probably bought flowers for women. I’ve never done that - I mean, getting flowers. I need help. I have no idea how to behave, let alone relax. I’m afraid it’ll be a PR disaster, or he’ll ask his money back or something.”

It’s a bit impressive that he has been able to follow that rant, but among all those words Coulson is able to guess what Daisy is asking of him.

Still, something inside him tells him it would be better for everyone if he could find a way out of it.

Plus he almost feels no connection to that person Daisy is talking about; he had started to disappear by the time he met her. Coulson can’t help certain nostalgia thinking about that life - dinners in five star hotels, romantic relationships he thought of as a side dish to real life, with people completely removed from that real life - about that man he is glad he no longer is. That part was nice, and “nice” is not something that he’s experienced in abundance.

That person Daisy wants to help her? The man he was still wearing when they first started working together? Coulson is not sure he can conjure him to lend a hand.

“You could ask Mack?” he suggests.

Daisy snorts.

“Mack doesn’t date, he makes them swoon right away and boom, it’s a relationship.”

“What about Joey?”

This time she smirks. “I think he’s too busy _dating_ to have the time to coach me.”

They’ve gone from “advice” to “coaching”, Coulson notices. She’s right, though; it’s hard enough catching Joey on the base once they’re off the clock, he actually seems to have a private life away from this all (it was his condition for coming back to the organization). 

“Hey, I know I shouldn’t be asking this,” Daisy adds, shoving her hands in her pockets in a nervous gesture Coulson used to know well, but hasn’t seen in a long time. “Because I’m your boss and it’s… dodgy. But I trust you. Can you give me some advice as a friend, not as a SHIELD agent?”

As if to simply bypass his potential reluctance Daisy pulls up the info for the date on her tablet. Coulson tries not to comment on the money that was paid - mentally, for no reason that he can discern, he makes some calculations and figures he could have never offered that much money. He doesn’t own that much money, all in all.

Instead he focuses on the details of the bidder. Nothing seems suspicious. Big on charity. And his companies (plural) seem to employ Inhumans. Name is vaguely familiar. Daisy doesn’t seem worried that he’ll turn out to be another Ian Quinn, and knowing Daisy that means she must have done extensive background checks. 

It’s the guy’s picture that eventually catches Coulson’s attention.

“Is that him?”

“Yeah.” She watches his reaction. “What? Why are you smiling?”

“I think you’ll have a nice date.”

Daisy returns his grin.

“Well, now I know _your_ type.”

Coulson gives her a blank stare.

“Help me, please? He’s _sophisticated_ \- I’m not. You are.”

He knows he is going to regret this.

He also knows Daisy truly believes herself in need of help, that she is feeling the bite of an inferiority complex, and there’s no way he can say “no” to her in those circumstances. He shifts uncomfortably where he stands, realizing he has never been able to do so - but luckily she has never taken advantage, if she has even noticed. Daisy never asks for things, all the more reason not to refuse her.

“I don’t think he’s expecting a real date,” he tells Daisy, his mind beginning to work the problem.

Daisy seems to notice him giving in, too, because suddenly the tension disappears from her shoulders and her jaw, and she looks relaxed. Not like trouble is all over, but happy to face it head on. Well, “trouble”. Coulson wishes all her problems were of this caliber. 

“I know that,” she says. “But I wouldn’t even know where to start with a _fake_ date. Miles was going to take me on an _ironic_ date once to a restaurant where you had to make a reservation - but of course he forgot to, uh, make the reservation.”

It’s all such a silly thing, but hearing Daisy talk about how she’s never been on a real date Coulson would like her to, at least, have a fun time on this charity event. It would be good for her, in a way. For all her claims that she’s fine about what happened to Lincoln the truth is Coulson notices her loneliness.

She should be excited about the whole thing, that’s the fun of dating - if only she could stop being so goddamn nervous about it.

Coulson has an idea but…

“I have an idea but it might be…” he hesitates, remembering her own words. “Dodgy.”

Daisy raises her eyebrows, looking somewhat pleased.

“I’m intrigued,” she says.

He remembers how nervous he would get on first dates when he was younger, to the point of panic, but how much easier (and enjoyable) it would get

“If the goal here is to relax you before the actual date, maybe you just need some practice.”

“Practice?” Daisy repeats. But then she catches up quickly. “Oh, you mean go on a practice date with you first.”

“When is your date?”

“In two days,” she replies.

“We can do a practice run tomorrow night,” Coulson tells her, trying to sound pragmatic rather than like someone who just asked someone on a date, someone he should never ask on a date for real. “I still have some contacts, I can get us a table somewhere fancy if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He pretends to busy himself with the preparations already, fiddling with his phone, while very aware of Daisy’s eyes on him.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, in a familiar teasing tone. “According to this,” she taps on her tablet. “I don’t think you have the money to date me.”

Coulson shakes his head and begins to turn from her. “Forget it.”

She grabs his arm, a warm charming laughter still ringing in the air. It’s hard to take offence.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, no more jokes,” she says. “You know I appreciate it. As a friend, not as a boss.”

He nods.

“And you know you don’t have to do this?” she adds.

Coulson looks at her. He wishes he would have had this many qualms about asking a subordinate for personal help when he had Daisy guard as he carved alien symbols on the walls. But they’ve always been very bad at boundaries; they’ve always been more like family than anything else.

“You’re not pulling rank, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She seems relieved to actually hear the words.

“It wouldn’t be a date _with me_ ,” he tells her. “I can pretend to be him. That’s the practice part of it.”

“Right, of course. Whatever you think would help. As I said, I’m completely lost.”

She swears him to secrecy, angry that she didn’t think of it before, making him promise he won’t tell the others - especially not Mack, or Joey, or _anyone_ \- or embarrass her. He wouldn’t dream of it.

They make a plan for it, like this is just another mission, falling into their habit of designing ops shoulder to shoulder. For a better illusion of an actual date he suggest he picks her up instead of leaving the base together. For a moment he actually forgets what they are planning, caught up in the simple pleasure of working with Daisy.

And it shouldn’t have to be that bad, he reasons. Ridiculous circumstances aside it’s just a dinner with Daisy. Which he should make a point of doing more often, and not just those nights where they come back from a mission and she is exhausted from using her powers and he heats up something for her because she only has the energy to crash on the couch and put the food in her mouth as Coulson watches, keeping her company. It’ll be fun to have a decent meal with her. It’s just spending time with Daisy. They’re friends, they’re both adults. There’s nothing to worry about.

Except, maybe.

Maybe letting her down.

“One more thing,” he tells her.

“What?”

“You said I was the expert but…” he pauses. He knows Daisy has a somewhat rosy idea of his romantic prowess, god knows why, perhaps it was the shock of meeting Camila Reyes so soon into their acquaintance. “All in all I’m afraid I’m a bit rusty.”

Daisy gives him an indecipherable look - or at least a look Coulson can’t decipher, which is rare enough to raise the alarm.

She reaches out and touches the lapels of his jacket, as if she is trying to set the fabric straight.

“It’s you, agent. I’m pretty sure it’ll come back,” she tells him.

She smiles and leaves it at that, a red dot popping in their screens meaning trouble. The real kind.


	2. faking it

_She looks at herself in the mirror, appraising critically._

_Not too bad, considering she had to cover a couple of bruises in a hurry. Perhaps they should teach that at the Academy._

_She applies some pale pink lipstick last. It’s a bit exciting, all this. Getting ready for a date. Even a fake one. A friendly-help date. Still. She remembers the girls in her school doing this. She’d visit their houses and they’d be getting ready in front of the mirror. Even the girls in St Agnes, though the sisters had banned makeup, of course. There was a healthy black market in place. Everybody seemed to be dating but her. Daisy couldn’t blame them; she wasn’t much fun to be around, back in high school._

_She’s not sure she’s much fun now but at least for tonight that won’t matter. Coulson already likes her, fun or no fun. He’s not going to be mean or drop her. And he knows her so well, there won’t be awkwardness - or if there is they can laugh about it together._

_Her phone screen lights up. It’s Coulson, checking in to see if she’s ready. Daisy’s heart skips a beat, she confesses. It is all very exciting._

 

+++

 

“Sorry I’m running late,” she says through the phone. “I’m finishing my makeup.”

“Yes, that always happens to me,” Coulson replies. It’s a joke, though Daisy has no way of knowing that from fourteen to eighteen all of his dates involving applying inordinate amounts of eyeliner and hours in front of the mirror. Today he did a bit of the latter, even if it’s not a real date he has to look decent, Daisy deserves some effort at least.

“Did you also have to cover some nasty bruises?”

“You want to cancel? If you’re not feeling okay-”

“No, no,” Daisy is quick to interrupt. “It will be a good distraction after the day we had.”

It’s at least a change of gears; a few hours ago he was helping Daisy walk out of a trap where she had to face down four anti-Inhuman terrorists. She kept the situation under control, but she took a few blows.

“Okay,” he tells her. “If that’s what you want.”

“I might want to keep the bruises tomorrow,” she says in a pondering voice. “He paid for a date _with Quake_ after all.”

Those words linger in his mind as he goes pick her up. He knows bringing Lola is overdoing it - he wouldn’t normally do that for a date. He doesn’t think he’s ever done it. Then again he wouldn’t normally be dating Daisy, someone like her, someone he works with, someone with whom he already has an emotional connection.

“I doubt he’s going to have such a cool car,” Daisy says, under her breath, with real fondness for Lola.

Coulson is a bit wary of drawing any attention, even if no one associates him with Quake, but he knows a discreet route to the hotel. He hopes tomorrow’s date is considerate of that and doesn’t want to make an spectacle of the night, even if it’s for charity. Coulson knows how little Daisy likes publicity - but a stranger might not, and Daisy would surely play along with a strained smile.

“You look good,” he tells her easily, gesturing in the direction of her pale yellow dress and the dark jacket she’s thrown over it since it’s a cold night.

“Thanks,” Daisy says, flattening her hands against the sides. “I thought I’d give the dress for tomorrow a practice run, too. And I knew you’d tell me if I needed to buy something nicer.”

“It’s perfect,” Coulson tells her, looking into her eyes. He starts the engine. 

“But you’re not Coulson, remember,” she says.

“I’m him, I’m… what was his name?”

Daisy makes an amused but tired expression. She probably knows Coulson remembers the name.

“Mark.”

“Mark. I’m Mark,” he repeats. “Nice to finally meet you in person, Quake.”

She nods, like she’s approving. Coulson plays it like he’s undercover. He has never had any problem pretending to be someone else, it used to be his job at SHIELD after all. Full-time. Though unfortunately his missions rarely involved walking into restaurants with a beautiful woman at his side, which is what he is going to do in just a few minutes.

The drive is comfortably quiet; Coulson supposes that’s not good practice, Daisy wouldn’t let silence hang like this with other people, especially not a stranger. He has watched her talk to fill awkward moments and to put people at ease. By nature she is quiet, but people rarely get to find that out.

Then he worries the restaurant is a little too old-fashioned, he hasn’t been in a long time after all, what was it, the early 2000s? But it seems that they have updated their look enough. As they walk in Daisy glances up at the ceiling, the place’s crowning achievement, the illusion of hundreds of twinkling stars above you.

“This is nice,” she says.

It’s not the restaurant she will have her date in tomorrow, for obvious reasons of security and practicality, but it’s one of those “fancy places” Daisy seems so daunted by. He wants to tell her this was not his world either, that he felt just as daunted the first times his job called him to pretend to be at easy among the rich and sophisticated. Among the overly educated. Fresh out the Academy he always imagined the person in front of him - the person he was trying to convince to let SHIELD help, or the suspicious person he had to confirm was truly hiding something - could tell he was a fraud. He learned to enjoy it - the restaurants, being able to spot luxury items, being able to tell someone’s entire life story from their accent without ever letting them figure out his - but he always wondered if the enjoyment was true or if he had forced himself to get attached to these things, these symbols of a status he never really belonged to.

He considers telling Daisy all this as they are led to their table.

But that would feel self-serving; he wants to make her see that she belongs in this world, not make her feel like more of an outsider. She is Quake, but more importantly, _she is Daisy_ , there is nowhere she doesn’t belong, whatever her SHIELD files says about her education, or the fact that everything she owns in the world can fit inside a small bedroom.

“Wow, okay,” Daisy says, looking at the menu.

“I’ll pay,” Coulson reminds her.

“What? _No_. You are doing me a favor, of course I’m going to pay,” she tells him. Then sighs. “Just don’t order the halibut, apparently. You of all people know how much a director of SHIELD earns.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen a paycheck in years,” he realizes. 

“Me either. Come to think of it, you brought me on as a consultant but you never really paid me, just roped me in with the promise that I might an agent one day,” Daisy says. “Or were you paying me in those water bottles with the SHIELD logo on the label?”

“I liked those,” Coulson replies with sincerity.

Daisy smiles a complicated smile.

“Yeah, me too,” she says. “I don’t miss much about those days - sleeping two bunks down from a Nazi spy - but I miss those cute tiny bottles of water.”

They exchange a look; a look of having survived something together. There is no nostalgia in it, just an acknowledgement of it having played a big part in their lives, in who they are now. The people they were back then wouldn’t have imagined ever sharing a “date” in a Michelin star restaurant. Perhaps.

“So what’s the deal here? How do I sit?” Daisy asks, wiggling her body in her chair. “Where do I put my napkin? Is there some secret way of gesturing to the garçon?”

She is kind of joking, and kind of really not.

“This is not the 19th century,” Coulson tells her. “His family are not going to oppose the marriage if you don’t know the rules of cutlery.”

Daisy smiles, relaxing.

“You mean _your_ family,” she corrects him, reminding him of the game they’re playing. 

“Yes, my family, miss Quake.”

“Right, you’re not supposed to know my name.”

“Superhero secret identity,” Coulson reminds her.

“Well, you know what I do for a living. What do you do? Isn’t that what your supposed to ask in a date?”

Coulson nods. Once upon a time he relished the idea of small talk. Now he’s not so sure he can do it anymore.

“I’m rich, I don’t have to do anything,” Coulson deadpans, trying to make her laugh.

The waiter arrives to interrupt. Coulson doesn’t order the most expensive dish, but he thinks Daisy should. She doesn’t, of course.

“It’s an interesting line of work, yours,” Coulson comments while they take the first sips of wine. “Being a superhero.”

Daisy looks away for a moment, embarrassed. It annoys Coulson that her date tomorrow won’t know that this is not false modesty, will think she’s playing.

“It’s easy being a superhero when you’ve got a good team with me,” she replies.

Coulson looks at her with a fondness he hopes is evident to every single person in the restaurant.

“I’m glad to hear that. Are they your friends? Or just colleagues?”

“It’s not like I can have friends _outside_ work but. Yeah, though the definition of friend is a bit different when you’re in SHIELD. But I’ve got a few friends in there: Mack, Yoyo, Piper, and Mike and Joey. And Phil of course.”

“Phil, uh? Who’s he? He sounds handsome.”

Daisy laughs, breaking character.

“Settle down, Casanova.”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

The food arrives.

Thankfully is as good as he remembers, or as good as he wanted it to be, and he watches Daisy eat with pleasure. She seems to have forgotten all worries about cutlery use.

As often as she eats Coulson doesn’t remember the last time he has seen Daisy actually _sit down_ and eat, rather than steal a moment to snack between missions, or hover over a re-heated plate in the kitchen while she reads a report, often once everybody else has gone to get some rest. He is not sure he remembers he himself sitting down to eat with people when he was Director, and he kind of regrets it now.

Maybe it’s not a bad thing then, this whole thing. This whole Date with Quake auction issue. If it’s something that forces Daisy to pause and go out and have proper dinner even for a night, even for two night counting this rehearsal then Coulson is satisfied, despite the part inside of him screaming that “buying” dates with women, even for charity, is a terrible backwards idea.

He’s been quiet for a bit now, enjoying the sight of Daisy eating with gusto. Enjoying his own food. Silence falling between them when the idea was to get Daisy more confident she can talk to the dude tomorrow.

Coulson shifts in his chair, uncomfortable in his dark suit, like he has suddenly remembered that he is not used to wearing fancy clothes anymore.

“Coulson, it’s okay, we’re not very good at this,” she tells him, knowing what he’s going to say.

It’s weird, she’s right, he has always been comfortable being someone else, yet tonight he is not feeling very inclined to play. He admits he’s not even trying. He doesn’t want to - he doesn’t want to be someone else.

“We are spies who go on missions, we should be,” he points out.

“I think as long as we stay away from undercover missions we’ll be okay,” Daisy replies.

Suddenly Coulson feels cheered up, once Daisy has given him this kind of permission. He pours more wine into both their glasses and proposes they make a toast.

“To more missions together,” Daisy says. “Just not undercover ones.”

Coulson shakes his head.

“What?”

“I don’t think this was necessary after all,” he tells her, smiling behind his drink. “You didn’t need the practice. You’re already good enough at this.”

“ _This_? This is easy,” Daisy points out. “It’s you, so of course I’m relaxed. I wish I could date you instead.”

Coulson lets out a strained chuckle.

She fixes him a look. Of course she’s not serious. It’s the kind of innocently flirty thing Daisy says sometimes. He enjoys it, and sometimes he can’t help himself, he flirts back, even if the memory of those times does nothing but mortify him.

“Well, I might be good at this part. But I’m bad at what comes after.”

He doesn’t know why he said that. Like he’s trying to put her off or something. Put her off from what? And the self-pitying tone… he doesn’t like hearing himself like that.

“I’m bad _at all of it_ ,” Daisy replies, herself a strange mixture of self-pity and pitiless self-recrimination. “As my track record proves. All the guys interested in me betray me, die or worse, turn out to be Hydra.”

Coulson watches her shiver for a moment but all in all it’s still said in a humorous spirit. It does look like she is able to talk about it with some distance. Maybe she was telling the truth and she is all right.

“Probably a good moment to drink to that too,” he suggests. 

“Make a toast while commiserating about exes, I’ll make a note of it,” Daisy says and they both reach their glasses towards the other. “It’s a very good date move.”

“Yeah, I should write a book on the subject.”

“Dating advice by A.C.”

Coulson freezes for a moment, weirdly affected by hearing such a nostalgic name all of the sudden. It gives him vertigo to think back on the last time he heard it. So many things have changed since then, not the least himself, not the least Daisy, and yet the weirdest part of it is how things between them have remained the same in so many ways, so changed in others.

“What?” Daisy asks, noticing his expression. “Sorry to break it to you but you’ve gone back to plain _Agent Coulson_ , I can use that name again.”

“You sound like you’ve been waiting for your chance,” Coulson jokes.

“Waiting? No, but it’s a nice perk of being the Director now…”

They end up drinking to that instead.

For a moment Daisy looks so unfamiliar - happy and relaxed - that he almost forgets the whole evening is fake. Then he worries - because Daisy is anything but unfamiliar - when he sees they’re finishing the bottle of wine.

“We’d better not drink too much,” he says. “You don’t want to ruin tomorrow’s real date with a hangover.”

“Or, you know, if we have to go out on a mission and save the world,” she jokes.

“That too,” he agrees. Then he sees the waiter coming over with the desserts menu. “Ah, this is my favorite part.”

“I could have guessed. You’re a sweet… uh… tooth.”

But then she seems distracted and turning serious when she looks at the menu.

“What’s wrong?”

He watches her pick at the corner of her napkin.

“You are you, but tell me the truth, I know guys. I shouldn’t eat too much, right?”

It dawns on Coulson that Daisy is not only looking forward to tomorrow’s date for diplomatic reasons, she wants the evening to be _successful_. He doesn’t know the man but she wants to impress him, she doesn’t want to put her foot wrong. And she worries her normal habits would be off-putting.

“And please,” she goes on. “Don’t give me that crap about how if he minds that I eat like a pig he doesn’t deserve me, because sure, but if I kept such high standards for men then I would really have no option but to date you. And yes, _I know_ I eat like a pig.”

For the first time in the whole evening - and this is strange, given the setting - he thinks about Audrey; Audrey who had an exquisite taste in food, but who also ate very little, at least in public and in front of him, excising the clichéd “you eat like a bird” jokes from Coulson from time to time, jokes that make him ashamed now, jokes that sound like they belong to a different person, but no, it was him, it was him nervously trying to fit into the script of what a relationship should be like. It’s too late but he wishes he could apologize to Audrey for that. Daisy eats a lot, the constant use of her powers leaves her hungry and in need of quick carbs, a fondness for junk food is undercut by her constant and punishing training. Coulson sees himself in the way Daisy eats sometimes, both messy stress eaters who had to learn some discipline for SHIELD.

“You never worried about this before?”

“When I was twenty I didn’t care if I met my boyfriend after eating three bags of Funyuns,” she says. “But now I’m over thirty and I’m trying to be a good citizen and a role model. I should probably learn how to eat in public.”

Coulson is about to crack a joke about how he hopes that never happens but Daisy is actually asking for her here.

“Look, I’m not some uncouth savage here,” Daisy hurries to add. “I don’t need you to teach me manners. I’m just asking… if you were a rich guy who paid a ton of money for a date with Quake, you’d be put off if she stuffed her face in front of you, right?”

He considers his answer. He doesn’t want to imply there’s something wrong with stuffing her face. But he doesn’t want to ignore her concerns.

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” he says. Daisy gives him an skeptical look. “In my experience first dates make one nervous, you won’t want to eat. Don’t obsess over it.”

His answer seems to relax her, but also embarrass her a bit, like she should have thought of it herself. “Of course, of course,” she mutters as she takes spoonful after spoonful from her chocolate mousse. They ordered the same dessert, neither willing to pass up the chance for some overpriced chocolate. Well, maybe not overpriced, Coulson thinks as he puts the spoon into his mouth. 

“Best dish of the night,” Daisy says, recovering and reading his mind.

“Yeah.”

She draws her chair closer to the table, her body poised like she wants to reach over, and her eyes shimmer with complicity.

“Just so I can get an idea of how real people do this,” she says. “What is your favorite date of all time?”

This one, Coulson thinks for a moment, stupidly, and then he shakes the thought off, and very far away.

“My last date with my first girlfriend,” he tells her. “She was one year older and going off to college, so she didn’t want to do the whole long distance thing.”

“That’s sad,” Daisy says.

“She wanted me to have a normal senior year in high school instead of just waiting for the holidays so we could see each other twice a year,” he explains. “She didn’t want teary goodbyes either, but I wanted a proper last date.”

“That sounds like you,” Daisy comments.

“We dressed up and went to have these disgusting hot dogs that we loved, in the cheapest place in town,” he goes on, getting sentimental over the memory. “We walked for hours, just talking. My mother worked late so we went back to my place and had sex for the last time.”

“That was almost romantic,” she laughs, shaking her head. “No, I’m teasing, it sounds lovely.”

They ask for the check.

Coulson keeps looking around as they leave, still concerned someone might have recognized Daisy (and all the inconvenient consequences and speculation that might bring her). She doesn’t seem to even consider the idea, let alone worry. For someone who spent such a great chunk of her life running away and fabricating alternative identities, looking over her shoulder, this might seem like strange behavior for Daisy. But Coulson imagines the problem is that Daisy isn’t used to thinking she might be recognized for _something good_.

“Is something wrong?” she asks as they wait for Lola to be brought to them.

He shakes his head, trying to get whatever expression has raised Daisy’s alarms off his face.

The drive back to the base is a quiet one, with Daisy jokingly complaining about how much she ate.

“I’m sorry if this was weird,” she says.

“Weird? Why?”

She shrugs discreetly under the seat belt.

“Because we work together and we are… we are us. We’ve been through so much together. I didn’t want to make it weird.”

“You haven’t. You asked me for help as a friend.”

She doesn’t seem convinced, but it’s enough that she doesn’t keep apologizing.

They enter the base together. At first the silence is a bit disconcerting and then Coulson realizes the dinner went on for longer than he expected.

He didn’t notice the time at all.

He watches Daisy walk, still with a doubtful expression. Then the doubts turn into a frown of concentration, and Coulson knows she’s going over what she should do tomorrow night for the real thing, that she is gathering some sort of resolve. 

“Hey,” he calls, touching her elbow.

Daisy turns, slightly surprised, like she had thought she was alone.

“You didn’t need me tonight,” Coulson tells her. “I’m sure you’d have done perfect tomorrow, on your own. But if it helped you go into it more relaxed, I’m happy I was your date.”

Daisy smiles at him — with that effort she puts in some times. Not that’s she’s faking the smile, she tries to make sure it’s reassuring for the other part. Coulson realizes she’s been pretty opaque about the whole going on a date with a stranger so far, other than wanting to be a credit to SHIELD, to Quake. He wonders how she really feels.

But this is the smile that _won’t tell you_.

It turns playful in a moment, and then Daisy is roleplaying Daisy.

“That was a date? Well, that was easy.”

“You’ll probably have more fun tomorrow. You’ll get to know someone new, that’s half the fun,” he lies. “And he’s… well, you’ve seen the picture.”

Daisy shoulder-checks him in a friendly manner as they pass the door to the common area.

“Hey, don’t talk like that, the company was very good looking tonight. Then again, you said so yourself.”

“Thank you, Director.”

She’s being nice - Daisy is _so nice_ , he wonders how people manage to miss that so often - and he tries to shrug it off. He doesn’t want to get weird about this. That wouldn’t be fair, and he’s taken advantage of the situation already: he _enjoyed_ tonight’s fake date, for himself, not just because he was helping Daisy.

He goes back to his quarters, feeling all strange and like something is missing. He realizes it’s that he hasn’t been in a date in so long, and this is not normally the way they end. He’s not being presumptuous — he’s never done this with a fellow SHIELD agent, and doesn’t have the experience of going back together to their base, where they work, after dinner.

Then it’s a good thing it wasn’t a real date, he decides. He looks in the mirror to start undressing and he catches a glimpse of himself. Looking ridiculous. The knot of his tie too well done. Like he was trying too much. And his face — he’s _old_. Coulson frowns, disgusted at the reminder. How he must have looked all night.

Yes, it’s a good thing, that it wasn’t a real date.


End file.
